Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus

The doctrine is based largely on Mark 16: 15-16: "He said to them, “Go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; whoever does not believe will be condemned."[5]

Pope Clement I (Bishop of Rome from 88-99 AD) teaches that the grace of salvation has been made available to the whole world by Christ's death, and proves this by the examples of those before Christ who were saved through their faith in God. Many after Christ's coming, who have faith in God, but cannot have explicit faith in Christ, fit Clement's description of justified persons, and therefore would seem to be included in those whom he teaches are saved through Christ.

The original phrase, "Salus extra ecclesiam non est" ("there is no salvation out of the Church"), comes from Letter LXXII of Cyprian of Carthage (d. 258). The letter was written in reference to a particular controversy as to whether it was necessary to baptize applicants who had been previously baptized by heretics. In Ad Jubajanum de haereticis baptizandis, Cyprian tells Jubaianus of his conviction that baptism conferred by heretics is not valid.[6] Firmilian (died c. 269) agreed with Cyprian, reasoning that those who are outside the Church and do not have the Holy Spirit cannot admit others to the Church or give what they do not possess.[7] Cyprian was not expressing a theory on the eternal fate of all baptized and non-baptized persons.[8]

Early Church Fathers

Justin Martyr

The concept was also referred to by Origen in his Homilies on Joshua, but neither he nor Cyprian were addressing non-Christians, but those already baptized and in danger of leaving the faith,[9] as that would involve apostasy. Earlier, Justin Martyr had indicated that the righteous Jews who lived before Christ would be saved. He later expressed a similar opinion concerning Gentiles. Those who act pleasing to God, while not "being" Christian are yet in some sense "in" Christ the Logos.[10]^:10

...Each one, ... shall be saved by his own righteousness, ... those who regulated their lives by the law of Moses would in like manner be saved. ...Since those who did that which is universally, naturally, and eternally good are pleasing to God, they shall be saved through this Christ in the resurrection equally with those righteous men who were before them, namely Noah, and Enoch, and Jacob, and whoever else there be, along with those who have known this Christ."[11]

Irenaeus (died A.D. 202) wrote: "One should not seek among others the truth that can be easily gotten from the Church. For in her, as in a rich treasury, the apostles have placed all that pertains to truth, so that everyone can drink this beverage of life. She is the door of life" (Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies, III.4).[12] But he also said, "Christ came not only for those who believed from the time of Tiberius Caesar, nor did the Father provide only for those who are now, but for absolutely all men from the beginning, who, according to their ability, feared and loved God and lived justly ... and desired to see Christ and to hear His voice.[13] Irenaeus recognized that all who feared and loved God, practiced justice and piety toward their neighbors, and desired to see Christ, insofar as they were able to do so, will be saved. Since many were not able to have an explicit desire to see Christ, but only an implicit one, it is clear that for Irenaeus, this is enough.

Gregory of Nazianzus took a rather broad view in his understanding of membership in the body of Christ. In the funeral oration for his father's death in 374, Gregory stated, "He was ours even before he was of our fold. His manner of life made him one of us. Just as there are many of our own who are not with us, whose lives alienate them from the common body, so too there are many of those outside who belong really to us, men whose devout conduct anticipates their faith. They lack only the name of that which in fact they possess. My father was one of these, an alien shoot but inclined to us in his manner of life."[14] In other words, by their charity of life, they are united to Christians in Christ, even before they explicitly believe in Christ.[14] Fulgentius of Ruspe took a much stricter view: "Most firmly hold and never doubt that not only pagans, but also all Jews, all heretics, and all schismatics who finish this life outside of the Catholic Church, will go into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels."[15]

Jerome wrote "This is the ark of Noah, and he who is not found in it shall perish when the flood prevails."[16] Bede continues this theme: "And according to this sense the ark is manifestly the Church, Noah the Lord who builds the Church."[17] Thomas Aquinas[18] Peter Canisius, and Robert Bellarmine (De Sacramento Baptismi) also used the image of the life-saving ark as a representation of the Church.

Augustine of Hippo made numerus remarks in response to adversaries, often on opposite sides of this issue, once saying: "Whoever is without the Church will not be reckoned among the sons, and whoever does not want to have the Church as mother will not have God as father."[19] He could also pick up on the sayings of the Fathers, and be completely inclusive in his assessment: "All together we are members of Christ and are his body ... throughout the world ... from Abel the just until the end of time ... whoever among the just made his passage throughout this life, whether now ... or in the generations to come, all the just are this one body of Christ, and individually his members."[10]^:30

• Pope Pelagius II (d. 590): "Consider the fact that whoever has not been in the peace and unity of the Church cannot have the Lord...Although given over to flames and fires, they burn, or, thrown to wild beasts, they lay down their lives, there will not be (for them) that crown of faith but the punishment of faithlessness. …Such a one can be slain, he cannot be crowned. …[If] slain outside the Church, he cannot attain the rewards of the Church."[20][21]
• Pope Gregory the Great (d. 604) in Moralia, sive Expositio in Job (An Extensive Consideration of Moral Questions) said: "Now the holy Church universal proclaims that God cannot be truly worshiped saving within herself, asserting that all they that are without her shall never be saved."[22] Pope Gregory XVI later quoted his predecessor in his 1832 encyclical Summo jugiter studio (on mixed marriages).[23]
• Pope Leo XII, (Ubi Primum #14, May 5, 1824): "It is impossible for the most true God, who is Truth itself, the best, the wisest Provider, and the Rewarder of good men, to approve all sects who profess false teachings which are often inconsistent with one another and contradictory, and to confer eternal rewards on their members… by divine faith we hold one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and that no other name under heaven is given to men except the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth in which we must be saved. This is why we profess that there is no salvation outside the Church."[24]

• Bishop John Carroll (d. 1815), the first bishop in the United States, recognized a distinction between being in communion with the Church and being a member thereof:

  To be in the communion of the Catholic Church and to be a member of the Church are two different things. They are in the communion of profession of her faith and participation of her sacraments, through the ministry and government of her lawful pastors. The members of the Catholic Church are all those who with a sincere heart seek the true religion and are in unfeigned disposition to embrace the truth wherever they find it. It never was our doctrine that salvation can be obtained only by the former.[25]

  Carroll traces this analysis back to Augustine of Hippo.
• Francis Cardinal Bourne, Archbishop of Westminster from 1903-1935, summarized the Church teaching as follows:

  If God the Creator speaks, the creature is bound to listen and to believe what He utters. Hence the axiom "outside the Church there is no salvation". But, as it is equally true that without the deliberate act of the will there can be neither fault nor sin, so evidently this axiom applies only to those who are outside the Church knowingly, deliberately, and wilfully. …And this is the doctrine of the Catholic Church on this often misunderstood and misrepresented aphorism. There are the covenanted and the uncovenanted dealings of God with His creatures, and no creature is outside His fatherly care. There are millions – even at this day the vast majority of mankind – who are still unreached or unaffected by the message of Christianity in any shape or form. There are large numbers who are persuaded that the old covenant still prevails and are perfectly sincere and conscientious in their observance of the Jewish Law. And there are millions who accept some fashion of Christian teaching who have never adverted to the idea of Unity as I have described it, and have no thought that they are obliged in conscience to accept the teaching and to submit to the authority of the Catholic Church. All such, whether separated wholly from acceptance of Christ and His teaching, or accepting that teaching only to the extent in which they have perceived it, will be judged on their own merits.[26]

• Pope Pius XII (1939–1958), allocution to the Gregorian University (17 October 1953): "By divine mandate the interpreter and guardian of the Scriptures, and the depository of Sacred Tradition living within her, the Church alone is the entrance to salvation: She alone, by herself, and under the protection and guidance of the Holy Spirit, is the source of truth."

Encyclicals

Pope Boniface VIII's bull Unam sanctam of 1302 was promulgated during an ongoing dispute between Boniface VIII and Philip the Fair, King of France.[29] In it, Boniface declared, "We are compelled in virtue of our faith to believe and maintain that there is only one holy Catholic Church, and that one is apostolic. This we firmly believe and profess without qualification. Outside this Church there is no salvation and no remission of sins." The bull notably extends what had been ecclesiastical dictum into relations with temporal powers. According to Robert W. Dyson, there are some who hold that Giles of Rome might have been the actual writer of the bull.[30] It is notable for the claim, "We declare, say, define, and pronounce that it is absolutely necessary for the salvation of every human creature to be subject to the Roman Pontiff."[31]

Pope Leo XII in his 1824 encyclical Ubi primum in discussing religious indifferentism, said: "A certain sect, which you surely know, has unjustly arrogated to itself the name of philosophy, and has aroused from the ashes the disorderly ranks of practically every error. Under the gentle appearance of piety and liberality this sect professes what they call tolerance or indifferentism. It preaches that not only in civil affairs, which is not Our concern here, but also in religion, God has given every individual a wide freedom to embrace and adopt without danger to his salvation whatever sect or opinion appeals to him on the basis of his private judgment."[32]

Pius IX

Pope Pius IX wrote a number of times against religious indifferentism. In the 1863 encyclical Quanto conficiamur moerore he said, "And here, beloved Sons and Venerable Brothers, We should mention again and censure a very grave error in which some Catholics are unhappily engaged, who believe that men living in error, and separated from the true faith and from Catholic unity, can attain eternal life. Indeed, this is certainly quite contrary to Catholic teaching. It is known to Us and to you that they who labor in invincible ignorance of our most holy religion and who, zealously keeping the natural law and its precepts engraved in the hearts of all by God, and being ready to obey God, live an honest and upright life, can, by the operating power of divine light and grace, attain eternal life, since God who clearly beholds, searches, and knows the minds, souls, thoughts, and habits of all men, because of His great goodness and mercy, will by no means suffer anyone to be punished with eternal torment who has not the guilt of deliberate sin. But, the Catholic dogma that no one can be saved outside the Catholic Church is well-known; and also that those who are obstinate toward the authority and definitions of the same Church, and who persistently separate themselves from the unity of the Church, and from the Roman Pontiff, the successor of Peter, to whom 'the guardianship of the vine has been entrusted by the Savior' (Council of Chalcedon, Letter to Pope Leo I) cannot obtain eternal salvation.."[33][34]

Pope Pius XI saw the ecumenical movement of the early twentieth century "as nothing else than a Federation, composed of various communities of Christians, even though they adhere to different doctrines, which may even be incompatible one with another."[35] In his 1928 encyclical Mortalium Animos, he quotes from Lactantius: "The Catholic Church alone is keeping the true worship. This is the font of truth, this is the house of faith, this is the temple of God; if any man enter not here, or if any man go forth from it, he is a stranger to the hope of life and salvation. …Furthermore, in this one Church of Christ, no man can be or remain who does not accept, recognize and obey the authority and supremacy of Peter and his legitimate successors."[36]

Pope John XXIII - Time Magazine Cover - January 4, 1963

In calling the Second Vatican Council, Pope John XXIII noted a distinction between the truths of faith and how those truths are conveyed. In the 1973 declaration Mystertium Ecclesiae, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith recognized that the articulation of revealed truth will necessarily be influenced by historical factors.[10]^:10

The Second Vatican Council declared that the Christian communities that are not in full communion, but only in "partial communion"[37] with the Catholic Church, "though we believe them to be deficient in some respects, have been by no means deprived of significance and importance in the mystery of salvation. For the Spirit of Christ has not refrained from using them as means of salvation which derive their efficacy from the very fullness of grace and truth entrusted to the Church." It explained that "some and even very many of the significant elements and endowments which together go to build up and give life to the Church itself, can exist outside the visible boundaries of the Catholic Church: the written word of God; the life of grace; faith, hope and charity, with the other interior gifts of the Holy Spirit, and visible elements too. All of these, which come from Christ and lead back to Christ, belong by right to the one Church of Christ."[38] These elements, it said, "as gifts belonging to the Church of Christ, are forces impelling toward Catholic unity." The Council refrained from identifying the visible church on earth with the Catholic Church, saying rather: "This Church constituted and organized in the world as a society, subsists in the Catholic Church."[39] And "it is through Christ's Catholic Church alone, which is the universal help towards salvation, that the fullness of the means of salvation can be obtained. It was to the apostolic college alone, of which Peter is the head, that we believe that our Lord entrusted all the blessings of the New Covenant, in order to establish on earth the one body of Christ into which all those must be fully incorporated who belong in any way to the people of God."[38]

In its decree on missionary activity, the Council, quoting Lumen gentium, 14, said: "Christ Himself 'by stressing in express language the necessity of faith and baptism (cf. Mark 16:16; John 3:5), at the same time confirmed the necessity of the Church, into which men enter by baptism, as by a door....' Therefore though God in ways known to Himself can lead those inculpably ignorant of the Gospel to find that faith without which it is impossible to please Him, yet a necessity lies upon the Church, and at the same time a sacred duty, to preach the Gospel."[40]

The Council also warned that full incorporation in the Church does not ensure salvation: "They are fully incorporated in the society of the Church who, possessing the Spirit of Christ accept her entire system and all the means of salvation given to her, and are united with her as part of her visible bodily structure and through her with Christ, who rules her through the Supreme Pontiff and the bishops. The bonds which bind men to the Church in a visible way are profession of faith, the sacraments, and ecclesiastical government and communion. He is not saved, however, who, though part of the body of the Church, does not persevere in charity. He remains indeed in the bosom of the Church, but, as it were, only in a 'bodily' manner and not 'in his heart'. All the Church's children should remember that their exalted status is to be attributed not to their own merits but to the special grace of Christ. If they fail moreover to respond to that grace in thought, word and deed, not only shall they not be saved but they will be the more severely judged."[41]

• Second Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution Lumen gentium, 14: "They could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it, or to remain in it."
• Second Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution Lumen gentium, 16: "Nor is God far distant from those who in shadows and images seek the unknown God, for it is He who gives to all men life and breath and all things, and as Saviour wills that all men be saved. Those also can attain to salvation who through no fault of their own do not know the Gospel of Christ or His Church, yet sincerely seek God and moved by grace strive by their deeds to do His will as it is known to them through the dictates of conscience. Nor does Divine Providence deny the helps necessary for salvation to those who, without blame on their part, have not yet arrived at an explicit knowledge of God and with His grace strive to live a good life."

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that the phrase, "Outside the Church there is no salvation", means, if put in positive terms, that "all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body", and it "is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church".[42]

At the same time, it adds: "Although in ways known to himself God can lead those who, through no fault of their own, are ignorant of the Gospel to that faith without which it is impossible to please him, the Church still has the obligation and also the sacred right to evangelize all men."[43]

The Church has also declared that "she is joined in many ways to the baptized who are honored by the name of Christian, but do not profess the Catholic faith in its entirety or have not preserved unity or communion under the successor of Peter", and that "those who have not yet received the Gospel are related to the People of God in various ways."[44]

Some conservative Catholics, traditionalist Catholics, sedevacantists, and others take a strictly literal point of view, holding that only baptized Catholics are saved. Among such groups are the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary of Richmond, New Hampshire[48] and Most Holy Family Monastery.[49] As they reject of concept of "baptism by desire", only a properly performed rite with the use of water and the requisite words is sufficient.[lower-alpha 1][50]

The doctrine is upheld by many in the Protestant tradition. Martin Luther, the foremost leader of the Protestant Reformation, spoke of the necessity of belonging to the church (in the sense of what he saw as the true church) in order to be saved:

Therefore he who would find Christ must first find the Church. How should we know where Christ and his faith were, if we did not know where his believers are? And he who would know anything of Christ must not trust himself nor build a bridge to heaven by his own reason; but he must go to the Church, attend and ask her. Now the Church is not wood and stone, but the company of believing people; one must hold to them, and see how they believe, live and teach; they surely have Christ in their midst. For outside of the Christian church there is no truth, no Christ, no salvation.[51]

Modern Lutheran churches "do agree with the traditional statement  that 'outside the catholic church there is no salvation', but this statement refers not to the Roman organization but to the Holy Christian Catholic and Apostolic Church, which consists of all who believe in Christ as their Savior."[52]

The Genevan reformer John Calvin, in his Reformation-era work Institutes of the Christian Religion, wrote: "beyond the pale of the Church no forgiveness of sins, no salvation, can be hoped for".[53] Calvin wrote also that "those to whom He is a Father, the Church must also be a mother,"[54] echoing the words of the originator of the Latin phrase himself, Cyprian: "He can no longer have God for his Father who has not the Church for his mother."[55]

Reformed scholastics accepted the phrase so long as the church is recognized by the marks of the church, which they defined as proper administration of the Word and sacrament, rather than apostolic succession.[56]

The idea is further affirmed in the Westminster Confession of Faith of 1647 that "the visible Church ... is the Kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, the house and family of God, out of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation." Despite this, it is not necessarily a commonly held belief within modern Protestantism, especially within evangelicalism and those denominations that believe in the autonomy of the local church. The dogma is related to the universal Protestant dogma that the church is the body of all believers, and debates within Protestantism usually center on the meaning of "church" (ecclesiam) and "apart" (extra).

• 1587: The Firm Foundation of the Catholic Religion[57][58] by Jean de Caumont, S.J. (Published in 1587)
• 1609: A Consultation what Faith and Religion is Best to be Imbraced by Leonardus Lessius

• 1625: Qui Non Credit Condemnabitur by Rev. William Smith, S.J.[59]
• 1822: An Inquiry, Whether Salvation Can Be Had Without True Faith, and out of the Communion of the Church of Christ by Bp. George Hay[60]
• 1888: The Catholic Dogma: Extra Ecclesiam Nullus Omnino Salvatur by Rev. Michael Müller[61]

• Sullivan SJ, Francis A., Salvation Outside the Church?: Tracing the History of the Catholic Response, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2002. ISBN 9781592440085

• Dominus Iesus
• Subsistit in

• Without the Church There Is No Salvation Catholic Education Resource Center
• Church Fathers on Salvation Outside the Church
• Can Non-Christians Be Saved? by Kenneth J. Howell. - Catholic Answers
• Declaration of the Holy See under Pope Pius XII on the meaning of the teaching, 8 August 1949
• Pope John Paul II, General Audience, 31 May 1995